I’m a news junkie. Can’t get enough of it. Though, I will admit that I have about reached overload stage hearing the apocalyptic speech coming from the talking heads about the current economic crisis. Unlike most geeks, I am old enough to remember the recession of the late `70s and early `80s, and we have a long way to go for things to get as bad as they were then. So keep in mind that though they may or may not remember it, your parents lived through times much worse than we currently have. Things will get better, maybe sooner, maybe later, the cyclical meanderings of things economic have always and will always happen. Enough of that…

So with this crisis looming, people will likely try harder to get the bang-for-the-buck in their hardware purchases. Last year’s video card wars really raised the bar for great performance in the under $200 video card market. Running AA on a video card under $200 was unheard of before last summer, now there are numerous video cards today costing well under $200 that will give you performance you previously had to pay well over $300 to get. One of these is a card that nVidia released late last year, the geForce 9800GTX+.

Sparkle Computer Inc., has been around since 1982. There aren’t a lot of current hardware companies that can boast of being around for over 25 years. And no, this Sparkle has nothing to do with Sparkle Power. Sparkle Computer builds a full line of geForce cards, and they aren’t afraid to get away from reference designs. Today I will be looking at the Sparkle Calibre P980+, which is a factory overclocked 9800GTX+. Sparkle has added a very interesting GPU cooler to this card. Will the P980+ impress? Read on to see!

Packaging
The P980+ comes in a nice looking but simple black box. Sparkle says that it is environmental friendly, and I believe them, it has the feel that recycled cardboard usually has. Inside, the video card is well protected inside a heavy blisterpack, and further protected by cardboard dividers.